


Ice Creamed

by EaglePursuit



Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Crystal - Freeform, F/M, Post-Gravity Falls, Returning to Gravity Falls, Short, Teenage Dipper Pines, Teenage Dipper Pines and Mabel Pines, Teenage Mabel Pines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24783103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EaglePursuit/pseuds/EaglePursuit
Summary: Part 1 of the Another Summer's Sunny Days series. In the summer of 2013, Dipper and Mabel Pines return to Gravity Falls to spend a week with their friends. But things get a little crazy when Wendy invites the twins to ride along on her new job
Relationships: Dipper Pines/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Another Summer's Sunny Days [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1792519
Kudos: 21





	Ice Creamed

**Author's Note:**

> Based on: Disney's Gravity Falls  
> Created by: Alex Hirsch
> 
> Beta Readers: my wife & PK2317  
> Art by: KID | @KIDWMA

Ice Creamed

The Speedy Beaver bus had left I-5 some time ago, abandoning high speed and smooth ride in order to carry its passengers to the outlying towns nestled among the forests and mountains of Oregon. Since then it rumbled along at a slower pace, down a bumpy two lane highway through a thick forest that encroached upon the road. 

Anticipation made the ride to Gravity Falls unbearably long for Dipper Pines, who let out an impatient sigh as he stared out the window trying to catch a glimpse of anything that might forewarn their arrival. He focused his eyes on the forest floor between the trees hoping to see one of the bizarre creatures that inhabited Gravity Falls’ environs. He saw some deer and maybe even a bear, or was it a stump? But nothing weird.

When his eyes began to hurt, he fiddled with the smartphone in his hand. He had examined its navigator a half dozen times since leaving the last town. However the phone was having trouble pinpointing its own location, and therefore couldn’t tell him exactly how much farther ahead their destination lay. “Perhaps that was the sign I’m looking for,” he mused to himself. Malfunctioning modern technology fell into the category of weirdness one could expect in the vicinity of Gravity Falls.

The weighty mass perched on his shoulder emitted an incoherent murmur in response. His twin sister Mabel had fallen asleep against him before they even left California. She had a partially completed knitting project laying on the floor of the bus where it had fallen when she drifted off. 

Still on her lap was a yellow mylar bag containing bright orange dust which also coated her fingertips on one hand and the zipper of the duffle bag on the opposite side of her from Dipper. Mabel hadn’t eaten any of the Cheese Boodles herself. Instead she had pushed them through the partially opened zipper in the duffle bag one at a time. After each one, the small, pink pig inside the bag had grunted appreciatively.

Dipper and Mabel’s parents had forbidden Mabel from taking Waddles with them on the trip. They had inspected her luggage. They had inspected his luggage. They verified Waddles’ presence in his shady backyard pen moments before leaving their house. They had been very serious about it. Yet somehow, here he was. Dipper had asked Mabel how she accomplished this subterfuge. “Oh, bro-bro! It’s just some simple sleight of ham,” she had joked with an enigmatic grin.

The phone in his hand chimed unexpectedly. For the first time since leaving the interstate he had data service, thanks to some fluke of local topography. He glanced at the notification: a text from Crystal, his girlfriend. He smiled with relief. The interminable boredom was over, at least temporarily.

Crystal: 

How’s the bus ride?

Dipper: 

I’m so bored and Mabel is sleeping.

She smuggled Waddles on somehow.

Crystal: 

Of course she did

I miss you already, Mason <3

Dipper: 

Miss you too

Remember, it’s just a week.

His phone’s text messenger indicated that it was still attempting to send the last text, which meant that the brief connection to the outside world had been severed again and the conversation was over for now.

Dipper had been dating Crystal for three and a half months, having asked her out on the spur of the moment at the school Valentine’s Day dance Mabel forced him to attend. He often reflected on how rewarding that uncharacteristically spontaneous decision had been. The result was a stable and enduring relationship by junior high standards; so much so that classmates sometimes asked him for relationship advice. He and Crystal saw each other in school every day because they both attended the same advanced placement classes. After school they studied together. On the weekends they found activities to do together. Dipper attributed the relationship’s longevity to all that togetherness.

His only complaint was Crystal’s insistence on using his birth name, Mason. She had discovered it on a routine health report from his dentist that he’d absentmindedly left sitting on his desk in his bedroom. She argued that allowing her to use his ‘real’ name meant that he trusted her and there were no secrets between them. Dipper disagreed but sighed and let her have her way, with the stipulation that she only use it in private. However, she became so accustomed to calling him ‘Mason’ that it occasionally slipped out in public, much to his consternation.

Dipper’s upcoming week in Gravity Falls was the first major argument of their relationship. Crystal was reluctant to see him go, yet refused to come with him when he invited her. She seemed to act as if he should have to ask her for permission to go on a trip with his own sister. This irritated Dipper in a way that he struggled to define. He felt like she might be trying to control him. “It’s only going to be a week, after all,” he kept reminding her.

He was tempted to suggest that she was jealous of his old crush, Wendy. Crystal would sometimes get a little defensive when he told her of his adventures with Wendy last summer. He also suspected that she was being overprotective of him. She usually reacted to his Gravity Falls anecdotes by condemning how dangerous or illegal it was. Other times she dismissed them entirely as impossibly embellished tales.

Dipper didn’t tell her about Weirdmageddon. He wasn’t sure she, or anyone else who wasn’t there, would believe it at all. Admittedly, it did seem a bit far-fetched to think a couple of twelve year olds and their septuagenarian great uncles had thwarted the end of the universe in a small, backwoods town when it seemed like an average summer to everyone else in the world.

Dipper put those thoughts out of his mind and pulled Wendy’s brown fleece bomber hat off his head, twirling it on his finger a few times to distract himself. There weren’t many occasions that he could wear it in Piedmont and not be laughed at, so he had hung it on his bedpost for most of the last nine months. Its one foray into the public had been when Dipper had dressed up as a lumberjack for Halloween, just as an excuse to wear it. Wendy got a kick out of that when he emailed a picture to her. It was a nice souvenir from last summer; it soothed him when he missed Gravity Falls. But Dipper was looking forward to trading it back for his trusty pine tree cap.

A thought occurred to him and he pulled up the navigator on his phone again. His GPS had updated during that brief interlude when Crystal texted him. The prediction had been eleven minutes to arrival. That had been four minutes ago. Seven minutes to go; he estimated that they were probably four miles away. He elbowed his twin to wake her up. “Are we there yet?” Mabel mumbled sleepily.

“Really soon, I think.”

She perked up and joined him in gazing out the window. 

Waddles noticed the increased activity from his seatmates and snorted through the partially open zipper. Mabel reached her hand inside and tickled his bristly chin and soft snout. He nibbled and licked the cheesy residue on her fingertips.

After a few moments, a familiar billboard rushed by the window. It read ‘Welcome to Gravity Falls.’

* * *

The bus rolled down Main Street towards the bus station on the far edge of town. Gravity Falls appeared the same as it did when they left last summer. Tyler Cutebiker’s first year as mayor didn’t seem to have involved any ambitious expansion projects.

“Look. Soos is here!” exclaimed Mabel as the Speedy Beaver bus came to a halt at the station. They could see Soos leaning against the side of his truck in front of the sturdy brick building. 

They each grabbed their own suitcase from the rack above the seats and Dipper helped Mabel carry the pig-laden duffle bag to the front of the bus. He was still frustrated, trying to work out how she had gotten it on board without anyone noticing. “Sleight of ham, huh?” he muttered to himself.

“Dudes, long time, no see!” Soos greeted them warmly as they stepped down to the sidewalk. “I hooked you guys up with your old room in the attic. Well, actually that’s what’s available. Abuelita stays in Ford’s old room because she doesn’t do stairs, ya know.” Soos was dressed up in his Mr. Mystery suit. He had taken a break from giving tours to pick them up.

“Not a problem, Soos. That’s the way we like it,” said Dipper, giving his friend a fist bump.

“Pterodactyl brooooos!” The large man wiggled his fingers in the air after they bumped.

Mabel released Waddles from his travel accommodations and gave the new Mr. Mystery a hug while the pig searched around for a convenient place to relieve himself. “Oh, Soos. It’s so good to see you!”

“You too, Hambone.” Soos easily hefted their suitcases into the bed of his truck and opened the passenger door with a mock bow. Dipper called shotgun and climbed into the front, while Mabel slid into the back with Waddles. Soos settled into the driver seat and started the engine. “I can’t believe you dudes are only staying for a week.”

Mabel rolled her eyes. “Well, we wanted the whole summer again. But Grunkle Stan and Grunkle Ford are out at sea and nobody has been able to reach them for a while. And since you’re not family and Mom and Dad don’t really know you, we compromised on a week.” 

“It’s fine though. Really. A week is better than nothing,” added Dipper.

She wrinkled her nose at her brother. “I think we could have gotten a whole month if you had my back. But you’re in such a hurry to get home to Crystal.”

“A month would be great. But yeah, Crystal would not be happy about it,” he admitted. 

Mabel made a whip crack sound effect with her mouth. 

“You just wish you had a boyfriend.”

“I could have had lots of boyfriends.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “I just choose not to because junior high boys are all a bunch of silly doo-doo-heads.”

“Sure you do,” Dipper patronized her.

“I’ll have you know that Bryce Anderson asked me to be his girlfriend two days ago.” Mabel blew a raspberry.

“Bryce?” Dipper sneered in disgust. “That guy’s a jerk! He used to pick on me in grade school.”

“Exactly!” Mabel agreed. “Plus, he cheats at mini-golf.”

“Wait, tell me you didn’t actually go on a date with him!?”

“Look, Waddles!” Mabel changed the subject hastily. She held up her pet so he could see out the window. “The Mystery Shack; we’re almost there!”

Soos pulled the truck into the gravel parking lot and everyone piled out, grabbing their luggage from the bed of the truck. Abuelita and Melody came out to greet them. The elder Ramirez held a plate of warm cookies and patted them both on the cheek with a kindly ‘Hola’.

Melody bent down to hug Dipper. “Oh, you haven’t changed a bit!” She ruffled the bomber hat on his head with her hand.

Then she hugged Mabel. “Look how much you’ve grown! You’re almost a woman.” 

Dipper grimaced at her contrasting remarks. The truth was, while he had grown a little, Mabel had grown several inches more, and their difference in height was greater than it had ever been. Their father had consoled Dipper by sharing that he himself had also been a late bloomer and put on most of his height late in high school, however Dipper did not find this particularly reassuring going into eighth grade as one of the shortest boys in his class.

“Okay, guys,” —Melody stepped back— “the cellular data service outside of town has been virtually nonexistent lately, so I set up a wifi router. The password is Soosisawesome618.”

“Dudes, I picked it myself,” Soos said proudly.

Dipper and Mabel pulled out their phones and connected to the wifi. Mabel took the opportunity to check her phone, which was bedizened with multi-hued plastic gems in swirling patterns, since she had been asleep most of the trip. She rolled her eyes in exasperation at the notifications. “Ugh. Bryce, take a hint.”

Dipper gave his sister a side-eye glance. “Hey, do you guys mind if Mabel and I put our stuff upstairs and then walk into town? We want to see some of our friends,” he asked.

“Yeah, I figured you would.” Soos put his big hands on their shoulders. “I just want to warn you dudes, though. There’s something weird going on around here. There’s talk of people seeing UFOs and stuff. It’s probably no big deal, you know. It’s just people are a bit jumpy about it.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow at the news, thinking of the ancient saucer buried below the town. “Is it the real deal or some kind of mass hysteria thing?”

“I dunno, dude.” Soos shrugged. “I haven’t seen anything myself. It’s just some people are getting kinda nervous about it, is all.”

“Alright. Thanks, Soos. We’ll see you later,” said Mabel. The twins ran upstairs and tossed their suitcases on their beds. Dipper glanced mournfully at the empty table between the beds and sighed.

Mabel deliberated about letting Waddles run free in the Shack while they were out. She wasn’t sure if Melody was pro- or anti-Waddles, but it didn’t matter for the moment because the pig found a warm spot in a sun beam shining through the large triangular window and laid on his back, falling deeply asleep. She decided to leave him there. The twins went downstairs, waving goodbye to Soos and Melody, who were back to work in the tourist trap side of the building. They headed for Candy’s house first, because she lived the closest to the Mystery Shack.

* * *

The twins had just turned from Gopher Road onto Madison Street when they heard a scratchy rendition of ‘Turkey in the Straw’ being played over a low-quality speaker behind them. Mabel’s eyes shot open and she whirled around with uncanny speed. Her predatory instincts were honed by years of experience as the apex predator of the sugary food chain. “Ice cream truck!” She hopped up and down in anticipation as the large, boxy truck with a fiberglass ice cream cone mounted to the roof slowly approached. The last few feet were agonizing for her as it sidled up to the curb in front of them. 

The service window slid open and a friendly face under a blue and white pine tree cap poked out. “Dudes! You’re here!” exclaimed a tall, skinny redheaded teenager.

“Wendy!” the twins chorused back.

Mabel's expression went from shock to wonder to envy in a few heartbeats. “You’re driving an ice cream truck!?”

“Yeah, man. I’m sixteen; got my license. Soos didn’t need me back at the Mystery Shack this summer because Melody is there now, so I got a job at the Ice Cream Palace instead. Usually I work the counter, but sometimes I drive the truck too.” Wendy smiled welcomingly. “Well, don’t just stand there, dudes. Climb aboard.” She opened the door for them and they mounted the steps into the interior workspace. “Pick out whatever you want, guys. A big perk of this job is free ice cream.”

Dipper unwrapped a novelty bar while Mabel assembled a massive cone made of every flavor in the freezer. He looked around. “This is amazing!”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty sweet gig.” Wendy nodded in agreement. “That song gets stuck in my head though. I swear I hear it in my dreams.” She frowned grimly, pointing to the roof where an oversized speaker was mounted in front of the fiberglass ice cream cone. Then she noticed the bomber hat on his head and plucked it off. “I’ll take that, thank you.” She took the cap from her own head and handed it to him. “Here ya go.” Then she fitted the bomber hat over her red hair and settled back in the driver’s seat, slipping the transmission in low gear. The heavy truck resumed its slow pace up the street.

Dipper adjusted the headband on his cap and tested the fit. It was just right at a single peg bigger than last year. He took a deep breath and sighed. “It is good to be back.”

“Le’sh drive to Candy’sh housh,” Mabel mushed through a mouth full of ice cream. She was losing a two front war, with the melting monstrosity on one side and brain freeze on the other.

Wendy turned left down the next street and then right. It was slow going because every block she would stop and sell ice cream to people who came out to the curb with money. The three friends talked between stops. “So you guys are only staying for a week, huh?”

Mabel gave Dipper the stink eye and swallowed a bite of ice cream. “Unfortunately. Mom and Dad didn’t like us being here all summer without Grunkle Stan or Grunkle Ford around.”

“Well, we’re going to have to get some quality hang out time in then, aren’t we?” Wendy smiled. “And what’s this I hear about a girlfriend, dawg? My boy is growing up!”

“Yeah, her name is Crystal.” Dipper blushed. “We’ve been together for a little over three months now.”

Wendy raised an eyebrow. “Wow. Sounds pretty serious.” 

“I mean, kind of. But we’re only thirteen. It’s not _that_ serious,” he demurred. “Well, I’m thirteen. She’s actually fourteen.”

“You do like them older.” Wendy elbowed him with a wink.

Dipper blushed more fiercely. “She’s only six months older.”

“Soooo, what’s she like?”

He pursed his lips and considered the question. “Crystal’s smart and serious and um...she doesn’t like to break rules. Um. She dresses nicely. And she’s about my height with curly blonde hair down to her shoulders,” he answered finally.

“Aw, she sounds like quite a catch, dude.” She glanced back. Mabel was sitting on the floor by the freezers surrounded by a pile of sticky napkins. She was strangely quiet and subtly shivering; her pupils dilating and constricting independently of each other as she stared off into the middle distance. “Is she going to be alright, man?” Wendy asked with concern. “I mean, she’s not gonna hurl is she?”

Dipper squatted down to look closely and furrowed his brow. “I’ve seen her like this before. I don’t think she’s going to vomit. But it’s uh..it’s going to get really interesting here in a few minutes. You didn’t happen to notice how much of the espresso fudge she ate, did you?”

Wendy shook her head.

They finally reached Candy’s house, but the diminutive, bespectacled girl didn’t come outside like nearly every other kid seemed to when they heard the distinctive ice cream truck jingle. Her parents’ car was in the driveway, so Mabel ran up to the front door and knocked. She could hear soft violin music coming from inside as she bounced from foot to foot waiting for the door to open. Candy’s mother, an imperious-looking Korean lady, answered the door and smiled. “Hello, Mabel. Welcome back.” Then she turned inside. “Candy, you may stop for a moment. Mabel is here.”

The violin music ceased and a second later Candy came to the door. “Welcome back, Mabel! I am practicing violin right now but maybe…Aaah!”

“Ice cream now, violin later!” Mabel lifted her petite friend onto her shoulder and trotted back to the ice cream truck. She climbed in the truck carrying Candy like a sack of potatoes and shut the door behind her, yelling, “I got her! Drive, Wendy! Drive!”

Wendy rolled her eyes and put the transmission back in low gear. They resumed their plodding pace. 

“I will text my mother. I don’t want her to think I was kidnapped,” Candy said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll practice violin later.”

“Grenda next!” Mabel leaned out the window, pointing the way.

“I actually _have_ to go by Grenda’s house. She’s, like, our best customer, man. It’s in our rule book and everything.” Wendy held up a binder labeled ‘Frozen Consumables Sales Vehicle Operating Procedures’. She turned to the newest passenger. “By the way, grab yourself a treat, Candy. It’s on me. Just don’t eat anything huge like Mabel did.”

They reached Grenda’s house a short while later. They barely stopped at the curb when someone started banging on the outside of the truck, booming “Grenda wants ice cream!”

Wendy opened the service window and looked out at the junior high girl built like a pro football linebacker. “Hey, Grenda! I’ve got a special treat for you today. Coming right up!” 

Mabel jumped out the truck’s door with her hands in the air. “Grenda!”

The burly girl wrapped her friend in a formidable hug. “Aaah, you’re here! I missed you!” Still grasping Mabel, who looked a little queasy from being squeezed, she turned back to Wendy. “But seriously, make with the ice cream.” 

The two teens climbed up into the truck to accompany Wendy on the remainder of her route. Mabel, Grenda, and Candy sat in the back, taking selfies together and talking. Mabel had done a much better job at keeping in contact with her Gravity Falls friends than Dipper, who had only exchanged occasional emails with Soos and Wendy. So it didn’t take long for the girls to bring each other up to speed on the latest events in their lives.

“Hey,” Dipper said to Wendy. “I, uh, finally got a phone; pretty much because of Crystal, you know. Can I put your number in?”

“Not going to get you in trouble with your _girl_ -friend, am I?” she teased, side-eyeing him curiously as she pulled over to sell ice cream to a bunch of little kids who ran out to the sidewalk with fists full of dollar bills and coins.

He shrugged. “Eh, maybe a little. She knows I used to have a crush on you. But it’s not like we’re going to make out or anything, right? It will just make it easier to hang out together this week.” He held up his plain black phone.

“Just checking, man.” Wendy smirked. She grabbed the phone out of his hand and entered in her contact information with one hand as she drove. Afterwards she took a look at the wallpaper image on his phone. It was a picture of Crystal posing under an arbor covered with blue flowers at the University of California botanical garden. “Oh, is that her? Super cute picture, dude!”

Wendy finished up her route and started driving back to the Ice Cream Palace. The shortest return route happened to pass by Circle Park, which was only a few blocks from the shoppe.

Mabel was giving Candy and Grenda an in-depth description of a Jayden Siebert concert she had attended in San Francisco when she looked out the window and noticed Robbie Valentino and Tambry sitting on a bench in the park. Mabel abruptly stopped her monologue on how perfect Jayden looked in tight jeans and pressed her face against the window on the left side of the truck.

Robbie had his arm around Tambry and she had her head on his shoulder while attempting to line up the perfect selfie pose with the duck pond in the background. 

“Oh my gosh! They’re still dating and it’s so cute!” squealed Mabel. Wendy’s driver window was open; Mabel scrambled across her lap and leaned out. “WooOOooo! Go Rombry!” She had decided to label them with a cutesy portmanteau couple name on the spur of the moment.

Wendy tried to push her out of the way. “Argh! Mabel, get off! I can’t see.”

Mabel attempted to slide backwards off Wendy’s lap, but it went awkwardly and her foot caught the steering wheel and jerked it out of Wendy’s grip. The slow-moving vehicle crossed the oncoming lane and jumped the curb into the park’s grass like an out of control turtle. Its momentum carried it through a split-rail fence before Wendy could regain control. 

She jerked the steering wheel right, back towards the street, but it was an over-correction. The soft turf allowed the outside wheels to sink in and the top-heavy truck to lean towards the left. Wendy turned back straight, but inertia was already carrying the vehicle over. It came to a stop with both right wheels in the air and the left side wedged against one of the park’s old oak trees.

The driver’s side door was stuck against the tree and the passenger side door was up in the air, so the five occupants clambered out of the rear door to assess the situation. Robbie and Tambry had witnessed the accident and ran over. “Wendy, what happened? Is everyone alright?” asked Tambry.

“I’m not going to be alright if we can’t fix this. I’m going to lose my job and my license,” Wendy growled angrily.

“Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry, Wendy.” —Mabel sank to the ground, rambling apologetically— “It’s my fault. We can fix this, right? We’ve got to fix this. We just need to get the ice cream truck back up on its wheels, right?” 

Wendy pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have had passengers in the truck with me. That was my mistake.”

Mabel ran back to the vehicle and started pushing against the drivers side, trying to right it. “Grenda, help me! Everyone push. We can get it back up!” They joined her at the driver’s side of the truck and pushed. The truck wobbled a little, but settled back against the sturdy old oak. She continued to push against the truck, but everyone else backed off to find another idea.

“I don’t want to alarm you,” warned Robbie. “But we should hurry before someone calls the cops. Then your boss is definitely going to find out.” 

Dipper walked back behind the truck, pulled out his cell phone and pointed it at the vehicle. 

“Hey, can you, like, not take pictures, dude?” Wendy asked irritably. “And Tambers, don’t even.”

Tambry surreptitiously slid her phone back into her purse.

“I’m not taking a picture. I’m using an angle calculator,” Dipper explained. “I might have an idea. It’s called parbuckling. With a long enough lever and some rope, I think we can turn it back upright.”

Mabel was still struggling to push the truck by herself. “Guys, come on. I think we can do this.”

“So how do we parbuckle an ice cream truck?” Wendy asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, we need to find something to act as the lever,” began Dipper, looking around. “Oh, that fence rail will probably work.” He ran over and dragged a part of the fence that had come loose when the ice cream truck plowed through it. 

Robbie saw Dipper straining to handle the large, wooden beam and picked up the back end to help him carry it. They leaned it up against the high side of the truck. Dipper climbed up on the truck and stood at the edge where the passenger side meets the roof, which happened to be the peak of the vehicle in its listing state. 

“Grenda, get up here with me and help me place the end of the rail though the window. Robbie, lift it from the bottom to help us get it up here,” ordered Dipper, authoritatively. Grenda climbed up on the truck next to Dipper and the three teens heaved the heavy piece of wood up onto the side of the truck and gently down into the window opening. Dipper and Grenda seated the end of the rail against the base of the driver’s seat. He held the rail in an upright position. “Okay Mabel, I need you to come around to this side and use your grappling hook on the high end of the lever.” 

It took a little bit of coaxing, but Mabel gave up on trying to right the truck by herself. She went to the passenger side of the van where the others were watching Dipper and shot her grappling hook at the end of the fence rail that was sticking up in the air. The hook shot passed the wooden beam, but Mabel released the catch and flicked her wrist, causing it to expertly wrap around and snag on its own rope.

“Okay, I’m going to stay here to keep the lever from slipping. We need the rope to be close to a right angle, so you guys back up a few yards and pull on it.” Dipper braced himself in the truck’s passenger window. 

The girls and Robbie pulled hard on Mabel’s grappling hook. Grenda turned and strained her muscles like the anchor on a tug of war team. The truck began to roll upright; slowly at first and then all at once after the center of gravity passed over the driver’s side tires. Dipper stayed in the window as long as he could, but lost his balance and jumped away from the vehicle as the tires slammed down. The fence rail clattered to the ground next to him.

Everyone cheered.

Wendy carefully drove the ice cream truck back up onto the road through the hole in the fence. “Robbie, Tambers, thanks for the help,” she said. She turned to the others. “I’m going to drive this thing back to my work. You four, meet me there. Hopefully, it’s not too beat up and no one will notice. I’ll give you a ride home in my car after I cash out the till and fill in my time card.” She put it in gear and drove away.

“It’s good to see you guys again. Sorry about the mess,” Mabel said to Robbie and Tambry with one of her trademark grins.

Dipper nodded. “Yeah, thanks for helping us take care of it. Hopefully we will see you around this week.” Then they said their goodbyes and started heading towards the Ice Cream Palace with Candy and Grenda.

Mabel smiled persuasively. “You know, all that work put me in the mood for more ice cream.” 

“No!” chorused Dipper and the other two girls. They walked all the way to the Ice Cream Palace in companionable silence.

The quartet hadn’t quite reached the shoppe when Wendy drove up in a wide, olive drab truck, “Hey, guys. Good news! My boss didn’t notice any damage. I’m off the hook. So jump in, y’all.”

“Whoa, you got a Humvee!” Dipper climbed into the passenger seat. He leaned across the huge center console and ogled the assortment of gauges, buttons, and switches that one doesn’t find on normal cars.

“Yeah, it's military surplus, dude. My dad got it for me from one of his weird prepper buddies. He says it will come in handy when we have another apocalypse.” Wendy said nonchalantly. “I had a feeling you’d get a kick out of it, man.” 

“Do you think we could try it out off-road sometime? Just...you know, not in the park.” 

Wendy shot him a cockeyed smile. “I think we can arrange that.” 

Mabel and her two best friends squeezed in the back, and everyone buckled their seat belts. Wendy put her foot down on the gas pedal, and the big Detroit Diesel engine roared down the street.

* * *

Seeking privacy, Dipper headed for the roof platform. Soos had already prepared it for summer with a couple of lawn chairs, a cooler, and an umbrella. Dipper adjusted the umbrella to shade himself from the sinking sun and settled into a chair. He pulled his phone out and looked at it for a moment. The cellular signal wasn’t great, but it was better than inside the Shack. 

He brought up Crystal’s phone number, and pressed Send. It rang twice before she answered it.

“Hi, Mason! How was your first day in Gravity Falls?” Crystal greeted him.

“Hey, Crystal! The bus ride took forever. Boring the whole way like I told you. But we had a good time once we got here. Soos and Melody are good. They said there’s some kind of UFO hype going on right now, but we didn’t see anything. We walked around town, met up with some friends, and then we accidentally crashed an ice cream truck,” replied Dipper.

“Are you okay!? I hope you were wearing a seatbelt.”

“Ha! The ice cream truck didn’t even have any passenger seats. We were just riding in the back. We were going super slow though, so no one got hurt. But we did have to tip it back onto its tires,” said Dipper, relaying the highlights of the event.

“Mason, that doesn’t sound good at all! You’re supposed to stay safe up there!” Crystal was exasperated. “I don’t want my boyfriend coming home with broken bones!”

Dipper rolled his eyes. “Oh, this was way less dangerous than most of the stuff we did last summer. I told you about the time we were chased around the lake by a robotic sea monster, right? Anyway, I showed Wendy that picture of you from the botanical garden. She really liked it.”

“Well that’s nice, at least.” Her tone betrayed mild annoyance. “I just hope you were exaggerating about the car accident.”

“Er... not really. But I miss you and I wish you were here,” Dipper said affectionately. “I would love to show you how great this place is.”

“I miss you too, Mason. Have a fun week. Good night!”

“Good night!”

Be sure to read the next adventure: 

Which Indeed


End file.
